"A friend is someone who gives you total freedom to be yourself." - Jim Morrison

Chapter Six: Toxic Tides

"I find it very difficult to believe that you sent seven men to capture them and they came back with nothing but splinters in their eyes. Have you lot learned nothing?"

Rubinoff looked at his feet. He was disappointing her again.

"What have we learned here?" She tilted his chin up with the tip of her wand.

He shook his head, desperately searching for something to say. He was shaking again.

"We have learned never to underestimate the enemy," she answered for him quietly. "I expect you to be looking for them. You can kill the Malfoy boy if he is too much trouble, but I want the mudblood brought back here alive and well. I have business of my own to attend to in the meantime."

As much as he feared his master, he loved her as well, much more than the Dark Lord, because even though she ruled them, even though they listened to her every word and would give their lives at a flick of her finger, she was one of them. She did not sit back and let her servants take care of the work for her - she got right into the cause and worked just as hard as they did.

If she didn't, a lot of them would definitely have cause to be disgruntled.

She cared about every single one of them, even the lower ranking and newer forces. They knew that their lives were disposable, but she let them know that she would never let them go into a mission without being prepared enough to make it out alive. She was not that cruel.

Her cleverness had brought them together in such a short time. She was absolute gold.

Hermione had been missing for almost two weeks now.

Harry Potter looked at the two pictures in front of him, willing his heart to calm its racing. It was a smiling picture of Hermione, a book in her lap, a quill tucked behind one ear... and a tiny school portrait of Draco Malfoy, smile-less, heartless, cold.

The innkeeper had confirmed both. He'd described the relationship between them as "young lovers."

Harry cringed, wondering how Malfoy had imperioused Hermione into complying with that atrociousness.

The glossiness of the photo was rubbing off, and there were fingerprints all over it. He'd sat staring at it for quite a long time, twisting it in his fingers, removing the quill from behind her ear and watching the little picture laugh and put it back.

Why did these things always happen to them? He'd saved Malfoy's life. Certainly that was cause enough to leave them alone.

But nothing made sense.

Intelligence from the other side had told them that Malfoy was supposedly locked away for doubt in his loyalties until they could decide what to do with him. And then, the Death Eaters had been in uproar trying to locate him when he'd escaped.

And suddenly, he'd run off with Hermione Granger, leaving a dead Krokesh behind him with a broken neck - which implied that Malfoy was not working with them.

To top it off, there was a good chance that one of them - Malfoy or Hermione - was blind. And it was probably Hermione, considering the sunglasses that the innkeeper had described as well as the slight dizziness she seemed to possess. Nothing connected, as there were so many unanswered questions.

Why had Malfoy killed a Death Eater and then captured Hermione? What did he want with her? What did the Death Eaters want with her, if anything? Their new leadership - a woman with no name - was much better at keeping secrets than the Dark Lord had been. The Death Eaters had suddenly become impenetrable.

She'd dragon-whipped them into shape.

"I'll be fighting for you for the rest of my life," Harry whispered. "I'll never let them have you." The little Hermione in the photo suddenly became serious. She nodded.

When she wasn't having nightmares of that night, her dreams were more vivid than she had ever remembered. It seemed like they wanted to make up for her lack of vision and show her everything. By closing her eyes, she could see again.

She loathed the time when she would be sucked back into the darkness of being awake.

Unfortunately, Draco was a morning person. She had been one of those for the longest time... but now, nothing could convince her to rise from the contentedness of her dreams. She had always seen sleep as a waste of time - now it was her favorite time.

"My, you are lazy for such a bookworm," Draco said from above her. She opened one crusty eye to glare at his voice, and swatted the air in front of her.

"I'm over here," he said, now from behind her. "We need to do something about your stupid eyes."

Hermione sat up slowly, her good mood and good dream destroyed. "And what cosmetic spells would you know?"

"I don't need any cosmetic spells, if that's what you're saying... but I do know some."

Hermione rolled her eyes. He was a smirking prat down to his core, after all. No situation could change that.

"Besides, cosmetic spells can't mix with dark spells. Your eyes are stuck like that - I was talking about when we are walking around. You can't carry yourself like you are blind - it attracts attention."

"I can't help that."

Draco sat up on his bed, fishing his wand out of his pants. He kept it there because he knew it was the one place Hermione would rather swallow a blast-ended skrewt than touch voluntarily. Just in case she decided to get bold, he needed to keep track of that wand. He transfigured the drawer pull of the bedside table into a watch. "Just try to look straight ahead. Don't tilt your head up, because we aren't stopping to look at a cloud. Try to walk with purpose."

Hermione furrowed her brows. Was he actually giving her advice? And useful advice, at that?

Draco looked around the room, finally seeing a folded map of northern Scotland, magical parts included. The United Kingdom was a lot bigger than the muggles thought - it had the potential to be the size of Spain. How the wizarding world managed to fit all this land into the small island would be a mystery to any muggle - but after muggles and wizards could no longer coexist, the wizards had found a way to hide themselves.

Draco thought that it was a little shameful that such a great race of people were hiding away, but there was nothing he could do about it.

"And you said I couldn't get a map until we were out of wizard territory," he scoffed, opening it and looking for the nearest port city. "It looks like you were wrong."

She hated that condescending tone. "Well, you couldn't get a map until we were out of the woods anyways. Where are we?"

Draco shrugged. "No idea. I have never gone this far north in Scotland before." It was amazing how one could live near a country for their entire lives and still not see it in its entirety, especially one who had money at their disposal that could be used for traveling. Hermione knew that he had probably been everywhere - China, Japan, India, America, Mexico... and all kinds tropical and luxurious destinations that she could only dream of visiting. That annoyed her. He had probably looked Mona Lisa dead in her eyes and had been bored. She could appreciate it.

"Which port city are we closest to?"

He shrugged again. "Bunches."

"Well, pick one then."

Draco shot her a look. "I'd appreciate your silence. This takes thought."

Hermione ran her hands over her braid, detecting frizz, and started to undo it. "We could go to the islands, getting off in Burwick - "

"I'm the one with the bloody map, I'm the one with the eyesight, and I'm the one in charge. Bugger off for a bit."

If I was stronger, I could escape all of this.

They were in the forests once again, the trees becoming greener and fuller as the magical forest thickened. Draco was no longer carrying her, having a wand and seeing no need to apparate them. Instead, she was levitating beside him, cross-legged and tired.

Now that they had a map on their side, navigating and avoiding muggle towns became easier. They'd gotten boxed in once, which had forced them to walk from one side of a town to the other, but besides that they were doing surprisingly well.

Now that Hermione had gotten over the initial shock of her situation, she was once again retreating into her old self, ignoring him just like she had done in school. She couldn't glare at him like she wanted to, but she made sure to be as short with him as possible.

As he had expected, and as he had hoped.

It was raining, and the trees did not completely shield them from the heavy drops as they saturated the landscape. As a result, both the young wizards were wet to the bone and cold, despite the daylight. Draco cast a quick, low-level warming charm over himself.

"Hey," Hermione huffed, her arms crossed.

"'Hey' nothing. You get to suffer."

Wet, dirty, and shivering, he was feeling particularly mean. He wanted to punish her for their circumstances, both with the Death Eaters and with the weather. Technically, she was the cause of his predicament. And he didn't like anyone making him suffer.

A lot of times though, he didn't get mad - he got even.

And it was actually that thinking that had put him in this situation to begin with.

He picked a bowtruckle off of his arm and flung it into a nearby bush.

By the next day, Hermione had developed a cold.

"Shut it," he snapped, irritated, after a stream of five sneezes.

"Maybe if you weren't such a dickhead, I wouldn't be sneezing."

All the little things - the way her voice curved around dirty words to try to project them when he knew that she wasn't comfortable with saying them; the way she was bent on pointing out every flaw that he had when he could shout a million things back at her; the way she huffed in annoyance every once in a while to remind him that she was still there. It was really getting to him. He was reminded all over again why he disliked her.

In school, he hadn't really needed to deal with her in more than small doses - class, lunch, prefects meetings. Dealing with her full time was overkill.

This was his mission. She needed to piss off.

"Where are we going?"

"Merlin's knickers, if you don't shut your hole," he warned.

They suddenly came upon a clearing with a wide, glittering lake in the center of it. Draco checked the map again. They were walking a bit northwest... yes, there was a little body of water speck right there. On the map the magical parts were in color while the muggle parts were in black and white... and this was in the magical part of the forest.

Draco put his wand away, and Hermione dropped to the ground, surprising her and sending her on another sneezing fit.

They did not really need to bathe, but he missed civilized life where he could if desired take two showers a day, taking as long as he pleased. It was going to be a while before they found another perfect opportunity to do so.

Draco reached out and tested the water - it was actually a bit warm.

"Where are we?" Hermione asked thickly, trying to feel the ground.

He took a few calming breaths before he spoke, rolling his aching shoulders. "We're at... the Pond of Dreams."

Hermione's face darkened. "The Pond of Dreams... the one that induces a dreamless sleep for eternity?"

"No," Draco said, looking at it. "That's the lake in Poland. This is the one with the healing waters."

"Oh," Hermione said quietly, realizing her mistake. Draco Malfoy had actually just corrected her... he was in her class when they had studied that in History of Magic.

"They're easily confusable, remember? Because of the names. It was on our O.W.L. exams..." he trailed off awkwardly.

Hermione nodded, her face blank. School seemed so long ago... she wondered how she had managed to forget History of Magic when Draco had actually remembered it. Her ears burned red.

"Anyway, I'm having a wash. And so are you." He pulled her up by her arm and pushed her towards the water's edge, covering the strange moment with a clear of his throat. "Now."

Hermione looked in the direction of the sound of his voice, wishing that she could see the expression on his face, or his posture, to tell what he was thinking. When it came to things like bathing or using the toilet, she still could never trust him. She wouldn't put it past him to say something about her body, or worse, make some comment designed to make her uncomfortable. She couldn't even do those things around her former dorm mates, let alone her bully.

Draco dropped his bag on the ground and started to remove his shirt. He really didn't appreciate her hesitance every single time they had to do this. He had already told her that he did not care, so what was her problem? His face set in hard lines. "I'm giving you exactly one minute to get undressed and get in the water, or I am throwing you in there fully clothed."

She reluctantly started to remove her shirt. Why did he not understand how this made her uncomfortable? It was typical of the men she knew to scoff at her modesty, but they at least on some level understood the societal pressures on women to look a certain way, and so they could only tease her so much before they realized that they were a part of the problem.

The constant sexualizing of female bodies coupled with the derision women were treated with when they put effort into their appearances - or worse, didn't - made for a messy power dynamic that only seemed to quadruple when combined with a prisoner/captor dynamic.

It was also just such an easy (and lazy) way to annoy her, albeit an effective one.

While Hermione fumed, Draco tried to remember what the properties of the pond were. Healing waters, illegal to drink... but it's there's no Ministry protection on it. And there should be a small waterfall nearby as well. Draco looked around the clearing, seeing a little bit of white mist in the distance, heading back into the thick of the forest. That must have been the waterfall.

Draco looked up as he heard a splash - Hermione had entered the water.

"I hope you're not intending to make me wear the same dirty clothes."

Draco rolled his eyes, shirtless and leaning against a tree. "We're running from some of the most dangerous people alive, and you're concerned about wearing dirty clothes? I got over it. You can get over it."

Hermione shook her head, rubbing her arms. She wasn't that concerned - she was just trying to be difficult, she knew. In the meantime, she wanted to brew an escape plan.

But first, she wanted to bathe; the water was actually warm, which was a relief. She stretched her arms, letting her joints crack before rubbing her bare skin, trying to remove the sweat and dirt from the past few days.

Draco put the wand inside of the bag and said, "Time to get out!" Hermione turned in his direction.

"Throw me someth - I mean, wait a second." She got a little closer to the bank, on all fours since the water only came up to her waist, and continued. "Okay, throw me something to cover up in."

Draco rolled his eyes and plucked her jacket from the grassy ground. "Here," he said, holding it in front of her. She felt for it and snatched it up, wrapping it around herself as she got out of the water.

"Stay right here, I'm getting in."

Hermione nodded, holding the jacket closed with one hand and feeling around for a tree with the other. There was a splash behind her as Draco entered the water.

"Ew," he said, looking around at the pristine water, "for such a clean pond it sure does feel like old bathwater." He looked back towards his companion to find that Hermione was not there.

"Fuck!" he cursed, lifting himself onto the bank.

Hermione was running, her hands outstretched in the jacket sleeves, the front open. It was an impulsive plan, but she was doing pretty well despite her blindness - the forest had been thinning out for some time, so there were fewer trees to run into. She heard a splash behind her; Draco was coming for her.

She sped up a bit; Draco ran after her retreating back. It was only a matter of seconds before he was right behind her, and he reached out and pulled her to him without hesitation.

"Did you really think you could escape from me?" he whispered in her ear before scooping her up roughly. Hermione screamed and squirmed as he threw her over his shoulder and marched back toward the pond.

Her bare knees knocked into his chest, which was smooth and dripping with wetness; her bare stomach was painfully bent over his shoulder. She beat her hands against his back and tried to fight his grip on the back of her legs. She tried her elbows, beaning him on his neck and head; he ducked to avoid her blows and tightened his hold on her legs.

"Put me down!" she shrieked, squirming.

Draco rolled his eyes again as he stepped closer to the water's edge, turned around, and dumped her, upside down, into the water. He turned back to see her bare legs sticking out of the surface just before her knees, kicking.

He laughed then, watching her try to right herself and then come up to the surface sputtering and coughing. Hermione stopped flailing around, hearing his laughter, and reached out.

Draco gasped as his foot suddenly left the ground and he splashed into the water as well.

All the irritation he had felt for the last few days came rushing back full force, nearly blinding him. "I'M GONNA MASSACRE YOU!"

Now Hermione was laughing.

She began pushing heaves of water in his direction, laughing as he countered. Draco was stronger, but Hermione was a better swimmer, eyesight or not. As his hand grazed her foot she darted away quickly.

"I hope you aren't intending to let a blind girl put you in your place!" she shouted through her ragged breaths, buttoning up the remaining buttons on her jacket, which was soaked through and clinging heavily to her arms and back.

"You are so dead!" he yelled back determinedly, taking big strides in the waist-deep water. She screamed again and moved away, diving under the surface and jetting in the opposite direction. She reached the other side of the pond quickly, and poked her head just above the surface to try to hear where he was.

"Ha!" he said triumphantly, grabbing her from behind and swinging her around. She screamed as she went under again. "I got you! That was for pulling me in the water!"

Hermione spit the water out of her mouth and tilted her head to get it out of her ear, noting with a grimace that he was ridiculously rough, tossing her about without any regard to her small frame. She messaged the spot on her stomach that had been pushed into his shoulder. "That's what you got for dumping me in like that!"

"Well, you shouldn't have tried to escape!"

There was silence then as they contemplated the situation and realized that yes, they were naked in a pond, yes, they were just having fun, and no, they were not supposed to be messing around at a time like this. They had murderers after them, murderers who had probably heard the screaming and were now coming for them.

"Come on," Draco said lowly, tugging the collar of her jacket and moving towards their clothes. Hermione sighed and followed.